Dreams of Dust

Dreams of Dust, a drama in French with English subtitles, will be shown at the library on Thursday from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Mocktar, a Nigerian farmer, comes to a gold mine in Burkina Faso hoping to find work and forget his tragic past. The Essakane gold mine which inspired the writer/director and is shown in the film is real. The French-born director was unable to secure funding for the film until he became a citizen of Burkina Faso.



If you're going with friends, Film Movement has provided some discussion questions you can talk about afterwards:

1. How does the cinematography create both a sense of space, especially in the vastness of the desert and the narrowness of the mines, as well as set the mood of desperation felt by most of the characters in the film?

2. What do you think happened to Mocktar back home, and what draws him to help Coumba and her daughter in Essakane?

3. Given that the gold mine is not highly successful, and Mocktar obviously has a troubled past, what do you think Mocktar hopes to find in Essakane? And what do you think he ultimately does find at the end of the film?

4. The style of the film has occasionally been described as being a docu-drama. How does the director establish a sense of reality in the film? Do you feel that this situation is close to reality? Why?